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PERL RESOURCE KIT-WIN32 EDITION MAKES PERL ON WIN32 MUCH EASIER TO USE Second Kit in O'Reilly's Series Features GUI Debugger and Visual Package Manager

Sebastopol, CA--The Perl
Resource Kit-Win32 Edition, an essential
collection of documentation and software from O'Reilly & Associates,
Inc., is designed to make the lives of Perl programmers a great deal
easier when it ships this summer, the company has announced. The Kit
will make the power and practicality of Perl, the most popular
programming language for active Web sites, available to a significantly
wider audience--those who use Windows and its graphical environment. In
the past, the majority of Perl programmers have worked primarily in the
UNIX environment, using Perl for system administration and Web
programming tasks. The new Kit represents a significant breakthrough in
ease of use and powerful tools for Perl in the Win32 environment.
Suggested retail price is $149.95.

The Perl Resource
Kit-Win32 Edition includes Perl version 5.005, which
will consolidate Perl Object technology from
ActiveState Tool Corp.
into the standard Perl distribution when Perl 5.005 is released in
August. The Kit includes tools from ActiveState including
the graphical user interface (GUI) Perl Debugger and the Visual Perl
Package Manager. The Debugger's graphical interface lets developers
find and resolve bugs much more efficiently, so they spend less time
searching for bugs. The Visual Perl Package Manager simplifies
installation, management and removal of Perl modules and extensions,
which previously could be a challenging task on the Win32 platform.

"The way I see it, the most popular scripting language for the Web is
now combining its strengths with the most popular operating system,"
says Larry Wall, creator of Perl and senior software developer at
O'Reilly & Associates. "We're multiplying strength times strength. And
because Perl is open-source software with true cross-platform
compatibility, we expect to see dramatic evolution and expansion in the
use of Perl. Thousands of desperate programmers will find out how easy
it is to use Perl for Web site development, for NT system
administration, and most importantly, for things we haven't even
thought of yet."

Another important development in the
Perl Resource Kit-Win32 Edition is
the ability for the first time to take advantage of Microsoft's focus on
Component Object Model (COM). Now, for the first time, Perl
programmers can use COM, thanks to two powerful utilities from
ActiveState included with the Perl Resource Kit: PerlCOM and PerlCtrl.
PerlCOM provides access to Perl scripts as COM objects, which allows
programmers to create Perl and Perl modules within Visual Basic,
Windows Scripting, and a broad range of other COM-friendly
environments. PerlCtrl turns any Perl script into an ActiveX control,
thus enabling development of COM automation servers in Perl.

The creation of the Perl version 5.005 release was made possible by the
Perl Porters, an international cast of developers who are the driving
force behind the evolution of Perl. In addition, the "oneperl" group,
founded in an effort to stop the divergence of platform-specific ports
of Perl, has contributed significant effort toward the timely release
of Perl 5.005. The oneperl group came together following O'Reilly &
Associates' first
Perl Conference in August, 1997, and is coordinated
by Gina Blaber, O'Reilly's Director of Software Products.

"Our intent with the integration of different versions of Perl for
Win32 was to avoid fragmentation," said Gurusamy Sarathy, current
Release Manager for Perl. "Perl for Win32 now offers a single powerful
implementation of the language that offers unparalleled features and
portability over other scripting languages for that platform. The
tools in the Perl Resource Kit extend that power to allow developers to
harness Windows and its component technologies."

About ActiveState Tool Corp.Founded by Dick Hardt, ActiveState Tool Corp. is a privately-held
corporation with investors that include O'Reilly & Associates.
ActiveState leads the industry in providing professional tools for Perl
developers, and introduced Perl 5 to the Win32 environment.
ActiveState is committed to supporting both the open source and
commercial development communities by contributing a wide range of free
binary run-time products while providing professional tools for Perl
developers.

Perl Resource Kit is a trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. All
other names may be trademarks of their respective companies.

About O'Reilly

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.